[3.5E] New Revision Spotlight - Mummy and Mummy Lord

[Schmoe]

I have to say that I really like the modified versions of monsters that I've seen, ie the Pit Fiend and the Mummy. Not only are the creatures more fearsome, but the mechanics of some of the abilities do a much better job of capturing the desired flavor.

Third edition required a shift in expectations as to what constituted a dangerous enemy, and I don't think that the designers were quite prepared to address it when the MM first came out. Now that 3e has been out for a couple of years, and parties routinely adventure in the 5th-10th level range and up, I think the designers are realizing the shift in power from 2e to 3e. Kudos to them.

I also love the flavor they've given to the mummy. For example, Mummy Rot should be a dangerous, deadly curse, and they've added mechanics to make it so. It's little tweaks like this that have me very excited to see the final product.

As for Great Fortitude, eh, I don't think it's that big a deal. As has already been pointed out, you can't say with certainty that it is a worthless feat, and it also goes a long way toward capturing the concept of the mummy as a very tough and resilient undead creature. Not every feat needs to be chosen for maximum mechanical impact. "Flavor" feats are also very important to the game, and I, for one, am very happy to see the designers giving a nod in this direction. Otherwise, we may as well go play Everquest.

 

[Matrix Sorcica]

Could someone please tell me why the hell the mummy lord has d8 for cleric HD when SS states that undead have d12's for HD - past, present and future.

To me, it looks as if there is a generel failure to communicate at WotC HQ.

 

[ashockney]

Merric,

Great writeup! Thanks for your excellent analysis.

I also noticed under the "spells" at the end of Mummy Lord that Symbol of Pain was listed as a 4th or 5th level spell. Normally, all "symbols" have been 8th level.

Intriguing...

 

[Knight Otu]

Could someone please tell me why the hell the mummy lord has d8 for cleric HD when SS states that undead have d12's for HD - past, present and future.

Because the section that says so ONLY applies to templates.

 

[Psion]

Because the section that says so ONLY applies to templates.

Yup. What he said.

[/AOL]

 

[Ysgarran]

That still strikes me as inconsistent. Let's say that you apply the lich template to a 15th level cleric. The hit dice is 15d12, no problem there. Now if the liche continues to gain levels in cleric are the hit dice d12 or d8?

Is there a mummy template around by WotC? Same question applies. What if someone comes up with a mummy lord template?

Also a question about the BAB. The BAB is 19 (Cleric advancement: +7, Undead levels: +4, Strength (26) +8) but the step is -8 instead of -5. i.e. the second BAB/Grapple attack
comes in at 11.
Why doesn't the mummy lord get two slam attacks? The cleric advancement alone is enough to grant it two attacks. Does the creature need the unarmed strike feat to get multiple attacks?

Everytime I see something like this I'm reminded that I still don't know the rules as well as I would like.

Ysgarran.

Because the section that says so ONLY applies to templates.

 

[MerricB]

The Mummy Lord is a multi-class character: 8 levels (Hit Dice) of Mummy, and 10 levels of Cleric, and an 8 Int.

Skill points should be (4-1)*(8+3) + (2-1)*(10) = (3*11) + (1*10) = 43.

Concentration +8 = 8 ranks
Knowledge (religion) +4 = 5 ranks - 1 Int
Listen +18 = 11 ranks + 5 Wis + 2 alertness
Move Silently +5 = 10 ranks +1 Dex - 6 armour
Spot +18 = 11 ranks + 5 Wis + 2 alertness

Total ranks: 45. Hmm... I'm two over for some reason.

It's an 18th level character, so should have 7 feats.

It has 6 feats. Perhaps it calculated as Mummy + 10 levels of cleric (+3 feats?)

Something odd here. Can anyone spot the error in my calculations?

Cheers!

 

[Marimmar]

Did someone notice that the Mummy Lord gets a Dex bonus although wearing a half-plate? I wonder if heavy armor is less restrictive in 3.5E.

~Marimmar

 

[Alzrius]

I've complained about this disparity in undead hit dice quite often now, so I'm going to pipe up here.

So far we have a slightly inconsistent view of undead and hit dice. The way it appears to break down is that, whenever you have an undead creature made as a result of a template, all hit dice, past, present, and future, are converted to d12's. An undead creature that is just a creature and not a template, such as the mummy, has d12's for natural hit dice, and uses class hit dice with added levels.

That still strikes me as inconsistent. Let's say that you apply the lich template to a 15th level cleric. The hit dice is 15d12, no problem there. Now if the liche continues to gain levels in cleric are the hit dice d12 or d8?

In this case, since Lich is a template, any hit dice the creature gains, cleric or whatever, are d12's.

Is there a mummy template around by WotC? Same question applies. What if someone comes up with a mummy lord template?

Yes, in Dragon issue 300 and again in Savage Species.

It's important to note that neither Savage Species nor any other product ever explicitly state any particular rule about undead and hit dice. Rather, Savage Species lists templates that convert every hit die a creature has from any source, past and future. Not-so-coincidentally, every such template it lists there are undead, and no undead templates are in the lists of templates that don't change class hit dice.

However, other places in the book (such as the example creature for the Emancipated Spawn PrC), a non-template undead is shown as gaining normal class hit dice when taking levels.

Were someone to make Mummy Lord into a template (such as the Greater Mummy in the Ravenloft 3E campaign book), it would then convert all past and future hit dice into d12's.

Everytime I see something like this I'm reminded that I still don't know the rules as well as I would like.

In this instance, your frustration is understandable, since we're working with no clearly-stated rule here...just what has since been uncovered, with no reason being offered. This wouldn't be so bad if they only gave us a reason, and an in-game view for how this works.

 

[Ashrem Bayle]

Tactics?

So where are the tactics? I havn't heard much about these of late. I hope they didn't decide to not implement them.

To me, the monster's standard tactics was one of the best addition of the revision.